The cycle has come round again. America is where
Anatolia was. It is a place where human beings, just
to stay alive, have to jump, to dance, & by dancing
revive the rhythms, recover cyclical time. Anarchic
& pantheistic dancers no longer sense the artifice
& its linear His-story as All, but as merely one
cycle, one long night, a stormy night that left Earth
wounded, but a night that ends, as all nights end,
when the sun rises.

1541 -- Countess of Salisbury, last of the Plantagenets, lost her head.

1647 -- New Old World: Execution of Achsah Young, of Windsor, Connecticut, first witch known to be executed in America — in Salem, Massachusetts, of course. She is hanged, rather than burned. Her crime was that of using foreign herbs to cure her neighbors. http://mcquoidg.tripod.com/frm218.html

1652 -- New Old World: First American mint starts making 3 & 6 d. pine tree shillings, at Boston. Proves the old adage "Money Grows in Trees".

1871 -- France: End of the Paris Commune (Bloody Week). Desperate combat by the Communards ends up even in Père Lachaise cemetery. The Communards are lined up & shot against the wall — which becomes known as "mur des fédérés," in honor to their memory.

Shall we hang thus by taut navel strings
To this corrupt placenta till we're flyblown;
Till our skulls are cracked by crow & kite
And our members become the business of ants,
Our teeth the collection of magpies?

1884 -- Jewish author Max Brod lives, Prague. Remembered mainly as the editor & close friend of Franz Kafka, his own work blends fantasy, mysticism, & eroticism, such as his most famous work, the historical novel Tycho Brahes Weg zu Gott (The Redemption of Tycho Brahe, 1916). http://www.pitt.edu/~kafka/brod.html

1890 -- France: André Rene Valet lives, in Verdun, Meuse. Illegalist member of the Bonnot Gang. Met the circle of anarchistes involved in the paper "L'Anarchie", edited by Victor Serge & Rirette Maitrejean, some of whom were also future Gang members. Valet was killed in a shootout with the police & the army, 15 May 1912 in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne.

After the arrest of André Soudy, then Edouard Carouy & Raymond Callemin, it is the turn of Bonnot & Dubois — who, when encircled, fight until the end before being killed by the police. Lastly, Octave Garnier & Valet are killed during an attack on their hideout by both the police & the army, while thousands of the curious run for cover.

1894 -- Louis-Ferdinand Céline lives (1894-1961). French writer (Journey to the End of the Night ). Nazi sympathizer jailed after WWII in Denmark. His anti-semitism is apparent in Trifles for a Massacre; School of Corpses; The Fine Mess.

Journey to the End of Night (Voyage au bout de la nuit).

("... not so much Platoon as Buffoon, really, with the soldier's main mission of the day being little more than looking for a place to pee without getting his dick shot off...")

Best known for The Maltese Falcon, introducing Private Investigator Sam Spade, which was filmed three times.
Among his screen credits is Watch on the Rhine, by Lillian Hellman, his companion in 1930s. Victim of HUAC witch hunts.

TRIVIA: According to an old joke Hammett studied Kant´s philosophy early at the age of 13. In Wim Wender´s film Hammett (1982) the author is involved in a crime investigation which provides the basis for another mystery book. Director-screenwriter Samuel Fuller also appeared in the film.

"Many writers continued their Hollywood careers under pseudonyms, or "fronts," sometimes with comic results. Alfred Levitt, for example, screenwriter of The Boy with Green Hair (1948), relates how a story conference got off on the wrong foot when he was addressed by four different names."

1912 -- John Cheever lives (1912-1982). American writer, wrote of the emptiness of middle-class, suburban America & portrayed its manners & morals with ironic humor. His career began with expulsion from the Thayer Academy in his junior year — the subject of his first short story, "Expelled." http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/cheever.htm

1923 -- Germany: Henry Kissinger lives ... Just another American war criminal in a just world.

1927 -- US: Army Air Corps Lt. James "Jimmy" Doolittle flies first "outside" loop, in a Curtiss P-1BHawk. Scientists predicted these (inverted loops) would be fatal.
We agree! Never loop more than twice a day, &, regrettably, during morning wake-up exercises, please avoid inverting!

1959 -- US: Delegates of the Insurance Agent's International Union & the Insurance Workers of America, having ratified the merger agreement at their respective conventions, convene as delegates of the merged union, the Insurance Workers International Union. The 15,000-member labor union later merges with the United Food & Commercial Workers in 1983.

Aquilino Ribeiro (1885-) dies. Great Portuguese novelist of the first-half of the 20th century, a life-long activist & youthful militant anarquista (arrested in 1907 for an explosion in his room in which a carbonário was killed). Nominated in 1960 for a Nobel Prize.

From the pine-nut, which a sudden gust of wind had torn from the mother-cone, & from the acorn, which the bird had dropped onto the ground, when the act was repeated a thousand times, the forest was born.

1968 -- France: The Upheavals of May '68 continue. The agreements of Grenelle (signed between employers & the trade unions), ratifies a wage increase, but is rejected by the workers who heap abuse on the trade-union representatives.
[Details / context]

1968 -- Senegal: University & high school Students go on on strike in Dakar.
[Details / context]

1972 -- US: Second "Watergate break-in" attempt by Dick "I am not a Used Car Salesman" Nixon's CREEP agents fail when bungling Virgilio Gonzales is unable to pick a lock on the door of the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

1974 -- US: The National Organization for Women's (NOW) national conference pays special tribute to the Women's Airforce Service Pilots as part of a campaign to help them win military status from the Defense Department.

Although the pilots flew more than 60 million miles during WWII, they were considered civilians & denied military retirement & benefits. Thirty-eight women died in the line of duty during the war, but the government did not even pay to send their bodies home.
Pressured by women's groups, the Defense Department finally relents in 1979, granting the pilots military status.

1986 -- Just Fishin Around?: Mel Fisher finds a jar containing 2,300 emeralds, recovered from the sunken Spanish ship "The Atocha," which sank in the 17th century. The value of the emeralds was said to be "multi, multimillions" of dollars.

2002 -- US: Ken Gjemre, founder of Half Price Books (1972), dies. Americans for Religious Liberty’s treasurer, Gjemre was a member or supporter of nearly 90 organizations & even more causes, including the American Civil Liberties Union, The Gray Panthers, & the League of Women Voters.

A courageous social activist, never afraid to speak his mind & act on his beliefs. He refused to testify against others when called upon to do so by HUAC during the McCarthy era witch-hunt, presenting the committee with an eloquent argument justifying his stand. Paul was arrested many times during civil rights & anti-war demonstrations in the US, & traveled internationally as a member of various peace-keeping teams. Peace in the Middle East, with full justice for Palestinians, was especially important to him.